The Information Commissioner has ordered the Government to disclose documents on feasibility and impact of ID cards but the

The Information Commissioner has ordered the Government to disclose documents on feasibility and impact of ID cards but the Home Office has instructed lawyers to resist the order.* Trident – The Ministry of Defence refused to confirm or deny whether the Government has any information for the consideration of the replacement of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.* Papers concerning the role of the Government in the arrest and detention of UK citizens and residents in Guantanamo Bay have been held back. The Government says that the Royal Family are exempted from the Freedom of Information Act.* Documents relating to the discussions leading up to the reclassification of cannabis. The Home Office says disclosure would prevent the formulation of future policy.* The impact on the economy of policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions – on grounds of cost.* Communications between the US and UK governments on obsolete vessels which need dismantling. Freedom of information has benefited the people – that’s what it was intended for, and we need to continue to build on its success But it has to be balanced with good government. A leak to the media prompted the Government to partially release details about the formulation of the Attorney General’s advice but ministers are fighting attempts for further disclosure.* The public cost of security for Camilla, right, Harry and William. It would be wrong not to make adjustments in light of experience.”Information being withheld* Full advice on the war in Iraq. The introduction of the Freedom of Information Act has clearly become too embarrassing for this disaster-prone Labour Government.”Yesterday, the Government rejected the idea of a flat-rate fee to submit an FOI request.Responding to the Constitutional Affairs Committee’s report, Freedom of Information – one year on, Lord Falconer, Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor, said: “I welcome and share the overall assessment of the committee that the implementation of the FoI Act has been a ’significant success’.

Ministers should leave these decisions to the experienced FOI officers.”Oliver Heald, shadow Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, said: “I fear the Government may be attempting to close down public scrutiny by curtailing the public’s right to know with this more restrictive regime. “It means ministers will be deciding requests on whether the release makes headlines or not – and that’s not what the legislation is about. and stop requests being made in the public interest.”He added: “There’s no need to introduce fees or greatly change the arrangements under which the Government introduced a costs regime. The reform package outlined by the Government yesterday represented a draconian intervention that was not in the public interest, MPs and freedom of speech campaigners warned.
But ministers say action is needed to reduce the annual £35m bill for handling 34,000 requests made under the Freedom of Information Act, which came into force in January 2004.Under the current financial regime, public bodies do not make a charge for considering requests if the work involved does not exceed £600 of a civil servant’s time.Now ministers want to set new criteria for making that assessment by including “reading time, consideration time and consultation time”. We would not want to see anything that damaged the freedom of information culture which, as we have already said, has already been put to very important use.”Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said: “These proposals would make it harder for requesters to ask penetrating questions and easier for authorities to avoid scrutiny.” One of the biggest costs in considering requests is when it triggers a referral to a minister.But Mr Frankel said the new rules would mean more interventions by ministers and therefore more requests declined for reasons of costs.

They are also in favour of limiting the number of requests made by individual pressure groups and media outlets who the Government claims disproportionately add to the costs of the legislation.A report published by the Government yesterday, looking at the economic impact of the legislation, found that journalists make up 10 per cent of the volume of central government requests and 21 per cent of the cost.Alan Beith MP, chairman of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, said he was concerned the proposals had the “potential to have an undue restriction on the working of the Act … Hamer told police he had beaten Joe with a pan because he had interfered with a photograph of his deceased step-brother. But Hamer had not even met the step-brother.Joe’s father, Tom, described how, despite his illness, Joe had a no self-pity. “He understood those were the cards God had dealt to him and together we made the best of what we had,” he said.The couple’s knowledge about how their son had suffered throughout his ordeal had been “enough to break any man, let alone a loving and devoted mother.”. Ministers have been accused of blocking the public’s access to sensitive information by proposing new rules to restrict the release of government reports, memos and letters. He had been in his primary school choir, and was in the local Crusaders motorbike club with his father.While in hospital, he would go to school as normal and in the evenings return to hospital.

He never complained about his illness and enjoyed playing video games with other children on the ward.By contrast, Hamer suffered from “infrequent and intermittent” contact with his father – a policeman, who left the child’s mother before he was born.He was affected by having heard his father tell his mother that he had no feelings for him and he struggled to integrate at school, where he was at the “low end of average” ability.Hamer tended to associate with children three years below his own age group – his extra years giving him, for once, some respect. He made an “adolescent sexual approach” to Joe, which was rejected.Soon after lunch on the day of his death, the fake letter – written in red ink after three earlier drafts in which Hamer honed his letter-writing technique – was being passed around. The teachers were interrupted when a fire alarm was set off, and everyone filed out to the playground before returning to class.Hamer’s letter was discovered with Joe’s body, stained with his blood, in the gully in Whitehead Park, Bury. They questioned Joe, who looked to Hamer for approval as he answered their questions. Joe went to the deputy head’s office but by chance was intercepted there by Hamer.Minutes later, and again by chance, the two teachers who first saw the note saw Joe and Hamer in the corridor. Despite a condition that required overnight hospital treatment for two weeks every three months and impaired his growth, Joe was always “100mph”, Manchester Crown Court was told.